Summer Driving Trip
For (a few) photos of the trip, click here.
Leaving Ashland mid-day, June 30 - wandering a bit in national parks in Utah and Colorado - quick visit to Greeley, CO - then east on I-70 to Philadelphia to see Philip and Mary. Planning to arrive in the Adirondacks around July 8.
Return Trip: We're headed back to Oregon, via Canada, looking forward to seeing Banff and the Canadian Rockies. We leave Monday, August 31, aiming to be in Ashland by Labor Day.
If you're curious how the map thing works, see Geek Alert below.
Journal
Ashland - Mon Sep 7
Home safely! Easy trip today - 450 miles or so. The Subaru is just 70 miles short of turning over to 100,000. We started at 90,000 - so this summer we added almost 10,000 miles to the car. I'll do some more close calculations, but roughly the eastbound and westbound drives combined were close to 8,000 miles.
Gus was happy to see us, though he had a very comfortable summer with Matt, our house sitter. casey is barking up a storm as he re-establishes his territory.
Boardman, OR - Sun Sep 6
Homestretch!
Casey got to add to his "wading into the great waters of North America" (Colorado River, Monongahela, Lake Superior, etc.) as we stopped to feed him in Kennewick, WA - on the Columbia River. Geography-wise it is an odd place, because there the Columbia runs west to east, before joining up with the Snake River, and making a big turn so that it heads and flows west to the Pacific.
Pretty drive today - even the dry parts of western Washington. We're about 7 hours from Ashland, which we'll do comfortably tomorrow - Labor Day.
Radium Hot Springs, BC - Sat Sep 5
No Internet access last night at Johnson Canyon Resort - so this is a two-fer.
We've finished a day and a half of journeying around Banff and Jasper National Parks. There are something like 4 national parks - all contiguous with others. We managed to avoid the actual town of Banff but checked off Lake Moraine (which I believe Mary recommended several years ago, Lake Louise, and the drive up towards Jasper along the ice fields/glaciers.
The Johnson Canyon Resort is a decades old, family run place with little cabins and a gift shop and restaurant. The 1.4 km hike up the canyon next to falls and rapids is extremely popular and on the bus tour route. We got up promptly and did the hike before breakfast. We had the outbound walk all to ourselves and saw a few couples on the way back. When we sat down to breakfast at 8:30 bus loads of hikers arrived. Still, a really nice place.
Casey is exhausted from a bit of hiking at different stops today, and all of the attention from fellow travelers. He accepts the compliments well, but I bet he's happy to have a quiet evening in the room tonight.
Medicine Hat Alberta - Thu Sep 3
Lots of miles today, but not much striking in the way of scenery. We're certainly in bread basket land. The news and shop talk is that the crops are about two weeks behind due to the cool, rainy early part of the summer. Not today - temps were in the 90s for most of the day.
We're looking forward to less driving tomorrow and an early arrival in the Banff area.
Portage la Prairie Manitoba - Wed Sep 2
It took another 8 hours to drive out of Ontario today. That is a very wide province. It was moose and beaver territory for most of the day. Pretty in a way, but with fewer dramatic features like Lake Superior's shoreline. Then, once in Manitoba the topology smoothed out and by the time we drove around Winnipeg, we were in bread basket land. Flat land, lots of grain, etc. I don't have concrete stats on this but I believe, and anecdotal observations support that Canada has many more family-owned farms, which tend to be smaller than the big, agribusiness plots in the U.S.
Thunder Bay Ontario - Tue Sep 1
Even though I grew up in Michigan I forget how big the Great Lakes are - Lake Superior in particular. We spent over 9 hours driving around just a portion of Lake Superior today. Beautiful, beautiful views - including inland with all of the lakes and rock ledges.
It is just...that...it...is...so...far...between...towns. The drive took forever.
Massey, Ontario - Mon Aug 31
Our first day of the return trip was under a clear blue sky. The Canadian forests and lakes were rich greens and blues. West of Ottawa the road narrows to two lanes, with passing lanes every so often - so slower traveling. On the other we don't see nearly so many trucks.
The Lake! - Wed Jul 8
...or more specifically on Upper St. Regis Lake, just 10 miles or so outside of Saranac Lake, NY.
We picked up Katy's cat, Maxy, who had been staying with one of her friends, and now Maxy gets to spend a month up here - sitting on the cabin window sill watching the birds, listening to the squirrels, and hissing at Casey. Still - a pretty good life, if "Mom" is off in Italy.
Our trip totaled 3,973 miles - many more than I had estimated.
Great to be here. No further updates, unless I edit an entry, until we start our trip home in late August.
Phoenixville, PA - Tue Jul 7
We're safely and happily at Philip and Mary's new house in Phoenixville, PA. This places them closer to Mary's new vet internship hospital, and they look right over the fence to a canal, which is then part of the Schuykill River. Casey likes the backyard to run around in, and our grand-dog, Mabel, has been a good hostess.
Easy enough drive today, though much more traffic.
We're the first to use Philip and Mary's neat guest suite on the third floor!
Richmond IN - Mon Jul 6
...right on the Indiana/Ohio border. Second long day - 633 miles today. Nothing terribly inspiring to photograph and the scenery was OK.
We're looking forward to seeing Philip, Mary, and Mabel at their new digs tomorrow around dinner time.
Lawrence, Kansas - Sun Jul 5
We knew today would be long and relatively dull, compared to the magnificent scenery of the preceding days. Over 630 miles through mostly flat eastern Colorado and Kansas. Casey continues to be a trooper as we fling him from one abode to another. He enjoyed playing with Bob and Jody's pug, Muffin, and knows how to settle right in when we arrive in a motel room.
Another long day tomorrow, though we get to see the arch in St. Louis.
Greeley, CO - Sat Jul 4
This 4th of July is a treat for us - spending the afternoon and evening with Doug's uncle, Bob Gentry, and his wife Jody. In high school and early college Doug spent 4 summers on camp staff in very northern Colorado, and Greeley was his home away from home on days off. We enjoyed seeing a cousin and other family members and a nice home cooked dinner.
Colorado drivers are more aggressive than we're used to in Ashland, but the trip from Dillon to Greeley was uneventful.
Dillon, CO - Fri Jul 3
Boy, did we luck out with tonight's lodging. We're in Dillon, CO - alt. about 9,000 ft - right next to Dillon Reservoir. We're maybe 100 yards from the lake, and tonight there is a band/music concert next to the lake and then fireworks over the lake later in the evening. Why July 3? Who knows, but it's fine with us. We went over and bought dinner snacks from the vendors and sat at a picnic table looking out over the lake - mountains, blue sky at twilight, sail boats - just amazing.
Betsy is off trying out the hotel hot tub, and in awhile we'll put warm clothes on and look for fireworks. We'll have to watch Casey's reactions, of course.
Earlier in the day we enjoyed Arches NP and then Colorado National Monument. Casey has waded/swum in the Colorado River several times - though always on a leash - the river is high and the current was strong!
Tomorrow we wander around these high altitude towns and the continental divide and then drive down (and NE) to Greeley to visit my uncle and his new wife.
Moab, UT - Thu Jul 2
Thunder woke us in the middle of the night in Ely and we had rain much of the morning. We'd like to go back to the Great Basin National Park (just designated in 1986) when the weather is more clear. Everyone agreed that this extended rain in late June/early July is unusual.
A nice side benefit of the rain was cooler temps - allowing us to walk around, and to let Casey run free in the desert among the sagebrush.
Great scenery at the end of the day again, as we approached the eastern part of Utah.
We're looking forward to seeing Arches National Park in the morning, and then on to the western slope of Colorado.
Ely, NV - Wed Jul 1
They call US-50 the loneliest highway in America, but it is beautiful. The story goes that Life magazine came up with the derogatory label and then some Nevada boosters decided to make hay with it. Huge expanse of wilderness. The western part out of Reno and Carson City - to Fallon, is stark but interesting. By the time you are in the middle of the state - near Austin and Eureka there is more topography and mountain ranges and unbelievably large valleys one right after the other. We really enjoyed the drive today.
Carson City, NV - Tue Jun 30
Our first day on the road. Relatively short - less than 400 miles, but we had a chance to drive through Lassen Volcanic National Park. We could stop at picnic and parking areas, but not go on any of the trails, because of the dog. Still, beautiful views under a blue sky. In our impetuous youth we climbed Mt. Lassen - to 10,500 ft. Not today... Casey settled into his routine very well.
Geek Alert - How the Map is Made
This year, with my new iPhone, I can save several steps from what I had to do in previous years. I've got the iPhone 3G (not the very new 3GS), which has GPS built-in. So I use an iPhone app called GPSLog. It lets me take a reading at some point, and it records the lat/lon coordinates and also lets me either take a photo of the place, or use a photo in the iPhone's camera roll. There are a number of other GPS apps, but they seemed better suited to a bike ride or running race, where you are constantly tracking progress. In my case I don't want to keep my iPhone running all day, recording a track of waypoints. That would drain the battery and keep it from doing other chores. So this app is a better fit for my needs.
At the end of the day I can use the GPSLog app to email me what is called a KMZ file, which is a zip-compressed file containing a folder with the KML file (a standard XML file of geographic coordinates and other information that Google can read) along with smaller versions of the photos I took.
I get that email, unzip the file, and use a little program I wrote for my dynapolis web site to upload the KML and photos to my Dynapolis web site, and the program does a little editing to make things work. I'd love to automate this process, but that will have to come with time.
Then on this page you are reading there is a javascript that works with the Google Maps API (application program interface). It looks for the uploaded (and slightly edited) KML file and uses that to place markers on the map. It also can link to the photos that open when you click on a marker. The Google Maps API is very sophisticated, and I've only done a very basic implementation, but it is a start.